For the purposes of this column, the role of Lou Ursone will be played by Mark Ruffalo (without the mumble).

It seems appropriate, since Ursone acted as Ruffalo's stand-in during the filming of "Reservation Road" in Stamford. It's not that they really look alike, but it saves me the time of trying to conjure a description of Ursone. As a bonus, I enjoy knowing you'll probably picture Ruffalo as "The Hulk" while reading this.

Ursone does have a green thumb for raising money. As impresario of Curtain Call, he brought the theater over the top in the Fairfield County Gives one-day event hosted by The Fairfield County Community Foundation.

The foundation raised $618,000 from 15,423 donations on March 7, and non-profits collected an additional $127,500 in prizes funded by the foundation, Bank of America and other sponsors.

Ursone read the fine print and figured out "most individual donations" did not preclude donors from contributing multiple times, as long as they gave a minimum of $10. By midnight, Curtain Call collected $30,675 from 1,890 donors, earning a first-place bonus of $25,000. It picked up an additional $2,500 in prizes throughout the day.

The foundation has already reached out to Ursone to pick his brain for suggestions to share with other non-profits.

His advice? "Make it fun. Apologize up front that you're going to see a ton of stuff from me and you're not going to hear from me for another year."

Then he giggles, forcing me to consider recasting his role. Ruffalo doesn't really giggle. In spirit, Mickey "Let's put on a show" Rooney would be a better fit, for Ursone has mastered hosting theater in a barn, whether real or virtual. His office is conveniently situated near Curtain Call's Kweskin and Dressing Room theaters (it is also inconveniently situated between the driving range and 10th tee of Sterling Farms Golf Course in Stamford, a bulls-eye for bad drives). Ursone tries on some of Broadway's greatest roles to explain how he claimed the non-profit equivalent of Willy Wonka's golden ticket.

While other organizations made straightforward pleas, Ursone dug through his back catalogue of cast photos from his 14 years as executive director of the community theater. In the hours and days before the FC Gives campaign, he posted and emailed photos with his own dialogue in comic strip bubbles over the heads of the likes of Jacob Marley ("Don't make me come visit you!") and Willy Loman ("I packed two suitcases with cash for Curtain Call, what do you mean contribute online?")

As he flips through the images, Ursone plays the lead in "The Producers," ("I never thought about investing in legitimate theatre! But I start at midnight tomorrow! Max Bialystick will contribute . . ."); the Cowardly Lion ("Forget the courage, I want . . ."); and -- ahem -- the title character from "Kiss Me Kate" being spanked ("I'm sorry, I forgot to contribute").

He used the image of one of the "12 Angry Men" stabbing a knife near the face of another angry man.

"You can't use that," warned his wife, Jan.

"I used it," he shrugs.

Ursone was so relentless in the days leading to March 7 that his Gmail account was shut down because he sent messages to too many dead addresses ("It made me look like a Spammer"). He was able to get it reactivated. Then he did it again.

"Yeah," he admits. "Oops."

His efforts could have backfired, but he found a welcoming audience. Some former cast members responded by asking for screen time: "When are you going to use my picture?"

With 25K on the line, he became a workaholic in overdrive.

"I was planning to smother him with a pillow while he slept that week," Jan Ursone says.

The problem was trying to catch him with his eyes closed.

"I don't think I had 10 hours of sleep that week combined," Lou says.

He made pitches from the stage during performances of "Les Miserables," and on the back cover of the show's program. When the curtain rose on the campaign at midnight that Friday, he tried to make a big entrance. Since the Ursones donate $1,000 to the theater each year, he wanted to divide the gift to squeeze in enough donations to qualify for an early prize. His computer froze.

The technical glitches didn't all fall on him. By breakfast time, the website handling donations crashed like the healthcare.gov site when it made its debut.

When the site -- which continued to blink off throughout the day -- did work, it showed a live scoreboard. Curtain Call maintained a solid lead until the evening, when Ursone and Co. were welcoming audience members for that night's performance of "Les Mis." Suddenly -- cue suspenseful music from the orchestra -- laptops, smartphones and foundation president Juanita James (who was in the audience) revealed that Ridgefield Chorale was closing in.

The captive audience kicked in more $10 donations. At 11:15 p.m., Ursone's brother called panicked from Texas, blurting "Who the $%&*! are those bastards from Ridgefield!" He rallied troops in the Lone Star State to pitch in.

Curtain Call finished with 1,890 donations, 235 more than its Ridgefield rivals. Ursone seems as excited for Ridgefield Chorale as he does for his own theater, calling them "the little engine that could" and admiring that they raised the majority of their annual budget in a single day.

Curtain Call's haul doesn't give them quite as much elbow room financially, but it's a major boost at a time when arts organizations live a perilous existence. Consider the fate of others that have vanished (Connecticut Grand Opera), closed (Stamford Theatre Works) or recovered from bankruptcy (Stamford Center for the Arts).

"We're on the edge," Ursone says.

At least they are on the right side of the edge. Before Ursone was hired in 2000, Curtain Call was on the brink of shutting down, hosting four shows a year. These days, they stage a show 42 weekends out of the year. Still, the budget took a hit with the loss of one production, so Ursone sees the windfall as "a big cushion."

"We know we'll get out of the year whole," he says.

As president of Junior Achievement of Southwestern Connecticut, Jan Ursone chose not to participate in the campaign, but expects to next year. Even as she repeatedly calls her husband "crazy," she acknowledges that "nobody can do this like Louie. He is the best."

Still, he repeats a line of dialogue that seems to be in the script for all non-profits: "No one likes to ask for money. I hate it. It's the part of my job I like the least. It's a necessary evil. But I really didn't have trouble asking people for 10 bucks."

Ursone and others acknowledge the likelihood that the foundation will tweak the system next time to prevent multiple donations from the same source.

"They'll probably change the rules, but Louie will figure out a way," Jan Ursone says.

This, after all, is a guy who is not afraid to bring knives, chains, a milquetoast lion and a little spanking to the fight.

John Breunig is editorial page editor of The Advocate and Greenwich Time. He can be reached at john.breunig@scni.com; 203-964-2281; http://twitter.com/johnbreunig.